Original image by There Stands the Glass.
Possession of a deeply discounted ticket for Daniil Trifonov’s April 24 concert at the Folly Theater helped sustain me in the bleakest moments of the pandemic. I’d been looking forward to the pianist’s twice-rescheduled recital for a long time. I can’t speak for others in the audience of about 700, but the misguided calls for a boycott- Trifonov was born in Russia- meant nothing to me.
The first half of the concert exceeded my lofty expectations. The 45-minute free-for-all was the most exciting performance I’ve heard in 2022. Hunched over the piano and panting heavily, Trifonov lurched as if he was enduring electrical shocks during a rendering of Karol Szymanowski’s discordant Sonata No. 3, Op. 36.
Trifonov then teased out unexpectedly jarring aspects of Claude Debussy’s Pour le piano L. 95. Even better was a riotous interpretation of Sergei Prokofiev’s avant-garde Sarcasms, Op 17. The pianist’s revelatory approach implied the three composers anticipated the subsequent innovations of Pierre Boulez, John Cage and Cecil Taylor.
I correctly anticipated the second half of the concert- Johannes Brahms’ Piano Sonata No. 3- would be a letdown. My indifference to Brahms remains intact even though Trifonov invested everything he had into the work. As he sweat profusely while abusing a piano bench, I contemplated my good fortune to be seated 20 feet from one of the world’s foremost musicians.